Our hotel Lal Gargh Fort & Palace was in darkness, it was only 0530 after all, but the front door was unlocked so we entered – startling the poor night porter who was asleep on a mattress on the floor just inside the door. We knew that the hotel was fully booked for that night, so we couldn’t get into a room immediately, but the hotel had told us there was somewhere we could sit until a room became available. We were led to an area at the back of reception with comfy sofas and given some water bottles, and settled down for a couple of hours of rest. As soon as the first person checked out, the room was immediately cleaned and given to us – an obvious upgrade to a magnificent room with balcony rather than the £30/night standard room we’d booked – result!

Like many Rajasthani cities, Jaisalmer’s highlight is the magnificent fort, in this case a golden sandstone spectacle rising around 100m from the surrounding desert and visible from miles away. It is a living fort, with over 2,000 people residing within the walls, but is in peril due to significant tourism-related increases in water consumption and ineffective drainage weakening the foundations. Six people were killed when an exterior wall gave way in 1998, five more bastions fell in 2000, and Jaisalmer’s fort has been listed among the World Monument Fund’s most endangered sites. An international effort to facilitate repairs and upgrade underground sewerage is underway, but many think that the best way to protect the structure would be to evacuate the fort and undertake proper repairs – obviously the fort-based guesthouse owners don’t agree.

Our hotel was outside the fort, so not contributing to the structural issues and with the benefit of amazing views of the fort from the rooftop restaurant and terraces. The whole city is constructed from sandstone and unsurprisingly Jaisalmer is known as the Golden City. We were about 10 minutes walk away, through a labyrinth of streets with every type of shop imaginable, stunning colours, old women selling fresh produce from the pavement, cows lying stubbornly across the narrow roads and blocking the traffic. The view of the fort is fabulous from every direction and it is stunning within the ramparts too. A little commercialised but still authentic & lived-in and not totally sold-out to tourism – although an Indian-Australian lady we met on the train said that she really didn’t like Jaisalmer is it was too touristy. We wandered around the shops, had a couple of lunches in rooftop restaurants looking down from the fort, one looking directly up at it, and took the excellent audio-guided tour of the fort museum. It really is a special place.

Outside the fort walls lie a group of stunning havellis, again built for the siblings of a wealthy Jain family (today Jains account for 2% of India’s population but pay 25% of taxes – they are a wealthy and successful part of Indian society) where we watched in amusement as people posed for their Insta photos and did funny dances for their Tic Tok videos!

Debbie had a little jewellery shopping expedition in Jaisalmer. Firstly within the fort she found an exquisite necklace but the ‘best’ price offered was far higher than she wanted to pay and she wasn’t sure what it was really worth. It’s difficult in a haggling situation when opening prices are significant – paying £100 for something worth £90 is one thing, but Debbie would’ve been mightily pissed off if she paid £100 for something that a local would’ve got for a tenner (or less). As she also felt that the necklace was a little too short in length, she didn’t pursue the negotiation and we ended up in another jewelers in the old town where she purchased a lovely necklace for a more reasonable price, and then ended up paying far too much for co-ordinating earrings, so the jeweler made back the money she’d negotiated him down by on the necklace, and probably more.

We had couple of dinners on rooftops overlooking the fort and marveling at its lit-up glory, we listened to the schoolchildren in the Government school next door singing each morning outside our bedroom windows, Debbie diligently did her physio and swam lengths in the hotel’s unheated indoor pool (and hoped that the staff & other guests didn’t hear her yell of “fuuuuuuuuuuck” when she first got in), we discovered that beer is very expensive even in the ‘English Wine Shops’, Debbie learned that mutton is goat in these parts (Steve already knew, and was enjoying it) and we set off into the Thar Desert for the night.

We had the option of a camel safari with sleeping in the open under the stars, or a more civilised desert camp with short camel and jeep safari. Debbie insisted on the latter, Steve thought she was being unadventurous but in hindsight was probably grateful that his time riding a camel was limited. Our driver took us around 40Km from Jaisalmer out into the desert, visiting the abandoned and supposedly haunted village of Kuldhara and the beautiful Silk Route fort of Khaba en-route to our camp for the night at the Barna Dunes area.

We weren’t exactly off-grid, just a few hundred metres from the road, and with full mobile signal, electricity, running water and a proper bathroom in our very comfortable air-conditioned tent. The camels were waiting for us outside our camp – the family ahead of us were mounted 2 to a camel, but when they saw us there was some mumbling between the camel herders and it was then definitely a camel each for us! We aren’t the most natural or graceful camel riders, and it was a bloody uncomfortable ride up through the dunes, with Steve sitting very lopsidedly and Debbie wondering whether (1) she really should be doing this given that her arm still isn’t fully functional and (2) it’s an activity covered by travel insurance. Our camels kneeled down without being asked when we got to the sunset point, presumably wanting to relieve the heavy weight on their backs and we got off quickly, tipped the boys and thought ‘thank god that’s over’. Our ‘jeep safari’ followed – 15 minutes of dune bashing hooliganism, not quite the ride out into the desert we’d hoped for but hey ho. We got a magnificent sunset and were asked whether we wanted to go back to camp by jeep or camel. We did feel a little embarrassed to see that even a really old couple took the camel option and we were the only ones in the jeep, but there was no way we were getting back in the saddle.

Back at camp it was time for the ‘cultural programme’ – music and dancing for the assembled audience (a total of 10 people, the camp was very under-occupied that night) and dinner. All very pleasant and the food was good – ‘Indian spicy’ so not catering for Western tourists – but the beer was our most expensive so far in India at Rs 450. Luckily the exchange rate continues to improve so that’s just over £4 for a 600ml bottle. The family with young kids went off to bed and then the remaining 3 ladies were invited to join the traditional dancer (who had been dancing with a fire bowl on her head a few minutes earlier). Debbie wasn’t pissed enough, only 1 beer at these prices, so no chance of her getting up and we blamed her dodgy arm, made her excuses and got the hell out of there! A really comfy night in our tent – definitely glamping rather than camping – and we headed back to the city via our driver’s home and the amazing spectacle of the royal cenotaphs of Bada Bagh.

Firstly our driver wanted to show us his village around 15Km from Jaisalmer and offer us a cup of chai at his house. We met his mother, wife, son and grandchildren – all living under one roof – and his brother who lives next door. In a tiny village of around 90 houses, there was a 12 class school and a small hospital so we guess it must act as a hub for other desert villages. We suspect the motive for the visit was really to give his brother a lift into town and collect the defective ceiling fan to take to the repair shop, but the hospitality was kind nevertheless.

Our final experience of Jaisalmer was Bada Bagh, about 6Km from town just off the main highway – an stunningly impressive site of row upon row of sandstone cenotaphs commemorating royalty whose remains lie elsewhere, and which make for an incredible panorama. Our friend Jayne said that these were unmissable and we were glad we listened – in a city of beautiful golden views, with Bada Bagh we’d inadvertently saved the best until last.

With a few hours to kill until our train the hotel kindly gave us a room to relax in (we really can’t praise Lal Gagh Fort & Palace Hotel enough), and there was time for Debbie to have one final physio session in the bloody freezing pool. And then a tuk tuk to the station, paying a man Rs 100 to lug Debbie’s heavy bag across to the correct platform, and off to Jodhpur.

We really liked Jaisalmer 🙂